Well, I know nothing about the Grand Turk in question. But while I agree that he did it because of geopolitical dynamics, he may well have* believed* that he did it out of divine duty, and if he didn’t, surely a lot of his cannon fodder did.
A guy named Karl Marx pointed out awhile ago that you can’t clearly distinguish between the real reasons and the imaginary reasons, because they always seem to point in the same direction.
Yes and no. When Vasco de Gama reached Calcutta in 1499, his interpreter was asked what the hell they were doing here by astonished Tunisian traders, and what they were looking for so far away from home. The man famously answered “Christians and spices”.
“Spices” was all about the Benjamins, but “Christians” were sought because Portugal & Spain were looking for allies in Africa to attack the Muslims from the other side - the fabled realm of Prester John, which Europeans were absolutely sure was out there. In fact, for a good long while Hindus were understood by Europeans to be some sort of weird Christian offshoot (after all, they were fighting against Muslims, ergo ipso facto…). The great discoveries were, in fact, at least initially all about moar crusading, and it’s no coincidence at all that they happened at the height of the Reconquista.
Something to watch out for, if you find yourself becoming either excited, angered, or confused by the versions of the past you are hearing or reading, is that there is a decided local-political effect involved.
The person above who seems to genuinely think that modern historians ONLY view the Crusaders as “bad guys,” is an example. When your LOCAL politician or pundit is trying to get you excited enough to back his plans for whatever, they will ignore the misbehavior of their own “side,” and emphasize the nastiness of the opponents. But that LOCAL (in either space OR time) version of things doesn’t mean that the larger understanding of the past is necessarily so biased.
There’s a recent book out by Carol Delaney that suggests that Columbus’s main purpose in his voyages was to finance a crusade to take Jerusalem, and that in his Diary, he has a letter to the King and Queen of Spain, talking about the first voyage, where he says that the Emperor of China (who he calls the Great Khan)
“in the Turkish sultan’s galleys, where some slaves rowed for decades without ever setting foot on shore.”
Consider the mechanics of that last sentence. Galleys were very sensitive to power. They required healthy, well fed, motivated rowers.
Galleys could not stay at sea for long periods, they were primarily coastal. They had to land at night for cooking, rest, sanitation and to take on fresh water. Bad weather forced them to put into port. And, besides propulsion, rowers provided defense.
A wizened old man chained to his oar and sitting in his own waste, is a Hollywood fantasy.
Crane
I’m afraid you have them confused with Greek and Roman rowers, who were indeed professionals.
During the late middle ages rowers were slaves and convicted criminals. No one cared about their rest or sanitation.
Yes, but the galleys themselves didn’t change - that is, they required the same effort. Has nobody seen the original Ben Hur ? A war galley needs quick turns, quick acceleration, and once in a while it needs RAMMING SPEEEED (though in the XVIth, it was more “boarding speed” but the principle’s the same). The rowers on these galleys didn’t make it very long, which is why capturing (or condemning) new ones was a continuous process.
I presume life was easier on commercial/freight galleys, where it didn’t really matter when you got there as long as you did get there. And maybe on those, rowers could for real have been chained to their oars and lived on the galley, since that case would involve numerous port calls - including in Christian lands as Molière is my witness.
But what can’t happen is having it both ways : war galley slaves living ten years chained to the oar. Just not physically possible.
They wouldn’t have been chained constantly. There would be time in port or times when the sails were used.
But there is mention, in the scant wrintings that exist, of being chained to the oars and being at sea for months.
And btw, Medieval galleys are nothing like the ancient ships.
Galleys only have a single row of oars, while a trireme, one of the lightest types, would have three rows of oars. With more rows, manoeuvering and possible entanglement becomes a bigger problem.
No matter the time or place, human power has parameters just like any engine. The mechanism must be maintained in working condition, it must have fuel, aspiration and the exhaust and excess heat must be dissipated. Assume that the average galley had 60 rowers. A human can sustain 300 Watts of power output. That’s 60 X 300 = 18000 Watts = 25 horsepower. So, you have a 60 foot boat with a 25 Hp engine.
To sustain 300 Watts a human must be well fed one or more times a day and constantly have quantities of water. Each rower will defecate once a day and urinate once every five hours. Failure to maintain sanitary conditions will result in rampant disease.
Consider the logistics of those requirements for 60 people. Their social status has nothing to do with it. A dehydrated crew will grind to a halt no matter how hard you beat them. Chains on wrists, waist or ankles limit motion and cause abrasions that lead to infection.
Double tiered rowing requires skill and coordination. The rowing crew was part of the boarding team that captured, or defended against, another vessel. Slaves cost money. They were not completely expendable.
A notable exception is the Christian French. They did have prison galleys that abused the rowers. They were coastal and probably very inefficient.
Crane